baked vanilla berry cheesecake

A classic New York style cheesecake flavoured with
real Bourbon vanilla and a slightly spicy gingery
base. Vanilla is probably the most popular flavouring
for cheesecake but there are many ‘vanilla flavour’
imposters about. The cheaper versions use Vanillin extracted from wood as a by-product of the paper industry but they don’t match up to the real deal. Vanilla is actually native to Mexico, but the production has now spread around the world with the best considered to be from Madagascar.

You Need: 120g salted butter
200g digestive biscuits
A generous handful of roughly chopped nuts
(any nuts will be fine)
500g cream cheese
200ml double cream
3 large eggs
250g caster sugar
250g summer berries
2 leaves of gelatine

kit contents:VANILLA POD, BASE SPICES: ground ginger, mace, cassia, cinnamon, cloves, cayenne

preparation time: 30 minutes plus 1 hour cooking time plus time to cool

equipment needed:

Makes about 12 portions